Through a child's eyes
by GummieBear37
Summary: What if Gibbs had met Tim way before he joined the team, when he was an eye witness in a murder case? AU
1. Chapter 1

_**Season:** None, Pre-series, AU_

**_Warnings:_** S_cenes of death and gore, but nothing too graphic_

_**Rating:** T for language and later violence_

_**A/N**: I've seen also of fanfics like this, but all of them are about Tony. Don't get me wrong, I love Tony, but I thought that Tim should have a go for once. Anyway, I hope you like it! ^^_

_Reviews are gonna be worshipped... also they will get cookies!_

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~ Through a child's eyes - Chapter One ~

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Timothy McGee sat alone in the open trunk of a police car, his legs dangling out of the car, too short to reach the pavement. A thick, grey blanket was wrapped around his shacking form, holding a Styrofoam cup filled with hot chocolate, which he had gotten from a nice policewoman a little while ago. He wasn't shacking just because it was the middle of January and very dark out. Even though he had already taken a few large gulp of the hot beverage, it as still unable to remove the sour, bitter taste in his mouth and the back of his through, and its strong, sweet spell wasn't enough to mask the strong sent of the two liquids that he still had on him. Looking around, he saw many police vehicles and even more policemen arriving on the scene, putting 'no not cross' tap around a certain area.

"God, would you look at this mess!" a red haired policeman commented, rubbing the back of his neck.

"First time?" asked a policewoman, tacking a sip of coffee.

"Yeah… How long do you think we'll be here?"

"This is nothing compared to a lot of other ones. I think we'll be done by the end of our shift," she smiled, patting the man on his back.

"Kinda feel sorry of the kid though. No 8 year old kid should ever see something like that."

Tim began to tremble again and quickly dropped his gaze onto his drink, watching the milk slowly spins and mixes into the hot chocolate. This was nothing?! How could that be nothing? He couldn't help to think back to the events that lead him to this.

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Tim ran down the street as if the devil was on his tail. He didn't want to, but it wasn't his really his choice, he was being chased. Again, for the third time that week. It was the bullies from school again. It was a small group of boys, around 6 of them, all older or bigger then him (though that wasn't hard as he was often mistaken as a 6 year old). He wasn't sure why they picked on him; they just did, practically every day. When it first started his mother had told him to not pay any attention to them and they would stop. He did just that, no matter what they did to him, he didn't say anything, but it didn't really help him very much. It wasn't just the name calling, but if they could they would push him over or kick or punch him, but it was all right, Tim could handle it. One time when they had caught him on his way home from school, he had to go to the hospital because of a broken arm. He had lied and told his mother that he had fallen over and crushed it under his body. She bought it, but he wasn't sure the doctors had. He never told on them. He was too scared of what they would do to him. Besides, it wasn't that bad, he could tack a few hits now and then.

He quickly dashed down a small alleyway and crouched down behind a garbage can. The gang of boys ran past him, unaware of him. He could just about hear what they were saying.

"Where'd he go?"

"I don't know! How can someone that small run that fast?"

"We were so close this time. I was starting to get that rush, ya know?"

"Lets just forget about that little geek, he's not worth the hassle. Besides, we'll get him later!"

With that, he could hear them walking further and further away. He waited a few minutes before creeping out from behind the dumpster, patting the dust of his clothes. He was wearing plain, blue jeans and a red top. Tim was never really one to be into fashion very much, anything that fit him and was comfortable was fine by him. He quickly noticed that it was starting to get dark and started to head home once again. But knowing that it would take him longer then usual because of his little 'detour', he decided to cut through the park to save some time. It wasn't the kind of park with swings and slides, but more like a huge field with trees and bushes dotted around everywhere. The little kids used to play there before one of the adults found dirty needles and smashed up bear bottles laid in a heap somewhere. After that none of the adults would let the kids play there. But Tim wasn't playing, so it would be okay, right?

As he passed a large huddle of trees and bushes, he suddenly heard something. Stopping and listening closely, he could just make out a muffled conversation between two men, which was accompanied with the occasional low grunt. Tim couldn't help but wonder what was going on. He was never one for danger or adventure, but when it came to mysteries, he couldn't help himself. Licking his lips nervously, he slowly advanced towards the voices. He quietly knelt down by one of the trees and silently crawled halfway into the bush, so that they wouldn't see him, but he could see them through the mess of leaves. He thought that maybe it was just some teenagers drinking or a couple making out or something like that, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

The first thing he noticed was that there was two men standing up, arguing in hushed whispers to each other. They were both fairly tall and muscular, completely dressed in black, which included their ski masks. The slightly taller one was holding a wooded baseball bat that looked rather old and battered. Tim's eyes suddenly widened when he spotted something on the bat. A think, red liquid, dripping slowly to the grass covered ground. Blood.

There was a low grunt, like he heard before. Looking down at the ground where it came from, he almost vomited. Laid on the ground was a middle aged looking man in an expensive looking suit, but that wasn't what Tim was staring at. He was covered in blood and fresh, ugly, purple bruises, his arms, one leg and his jaw looked like they were broken, as they were twisted in a sickly angle. He looked almost like he was out of a horror movie, just barely alive, moaning in pain. Tim was surprised that he was still alive; surly no one could take a beating like that and live. This was bad. Very, very bad. Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to run as fast as he could, just get away from it, but he was frozen with fear, staying perfectly still, not even daring to breath. The only thing he could do was listen to the two other men.

"Did you have to go that far!" asked the smaller man, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot, obviously nervous.

"Look, we were told to get the guys wallet, we got his wallet," snapped the larger one who was holding the bat.

"But did you have to… you know, beat him as hard as that?"

"Well, duh! Look, if he can't tell anyone any of this cos I broke his mouth, that's good! We were actually supposed to kill him, so he got of lucky! We needed to get those codes and keep him wait, were done here!"

Suddenly, the man on the ground gave a loud coughing noise, making a large cloth of blood splutter out of his mouth. Afterward, he became incredibly still and his brown eyes went glassy. Tim clamped his hand over his mouth to stop himself from gasping or screaming.

"See, look, he's dead, now can we go before the fuzz shows up?" snapped the man, who turned towards Tim's directing, about to walk away. He stopped for a second, looking over near Tim. His eyes were piercing green, like cold emeralds. Tim wasn't sure if he had saw him or not, because the man quickly looked away, distracted by what sounded like police sirens.

"Damn it!" he muttered, dropping the bat and grapping the others upper arm. "Come on!" And with that, they sprinted of thought the bushes, just missing him.

Tim stayed there, perfectly still, his breathing shaky and uneven. Tears rose in his eyes and his whole body began to tremble. After that, his mind went blank, his body giving into panic. He didn't think about what he was doing, he just acted on instinct. Scrambling to his feet, he rushed over towards the body and knelt down beside it. He clawed at the man's suit, shacking him roughly.

"Co-come on… wake up, wake up…" he pleaded desperately, his voice coming out a lot higher then usual, large tears spilled down his cheeks. He couldn't really be dead. He just couldn't!

"Please! Wake up! You have to… you… have… to…" Tim suddenly lost control, his crying turned into heavy sobs, his face leaking many different fluids. He turned his head away from the body, unable to look at it any longer. He expelled the contents of his stomach until it turned into a sickly, vile fume. Everything was spinning and then everything went black.

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Tim shuddered again. He had tried to forget it ever since he had been woken by a police officer. But it kept on floating to the top of his mind, like a bubble. He just wanted to go home, to his mother and sister and forget that any of this ever happened. He had tried to convince the police that he should go, but they weren't having any of it and made him stay. Tim brought his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. He couldn't help but wonder… what now?

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_**A/N:** I hope you like it, please tell me what you think_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N**: Thank you all so much who reviwed the last chapter, I love you all so much! ^^ I made this one a little longer, so I hope you all like it! Also, if you have any idaes, I am very open and will lisen to them all!_

_Reviews are gonna be worshipped... also they will get cake!_

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Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stepped out of his car and onto the crime scene. He was not in a very good mood as he was called all the way out to Norfolk, Virginia at 9pm and he still hadn't gotten any coffee that day. That, and the fact the Agent Jenkins had come with them. He was about the third agent that Gibbs had hired that month. They never lasted very long, just over a week if they were lucky. Jenkins was from the police force, which might be why Gibbs didn't like him that much, too official. But the man did stay out of his way most of the time, which was better then the other two. Right now he had gone of to talk to the people already on the scene, leaving Gibbs and Doctor 'Ducky' Mallard to examine the body.

"What have we got Duck?"

"A very brutal murder, Jethro. Seems the poor man was beaten to death. Yes, most defiantly blunt force trauma. And I'm guessing it was with that," he commented, pointing over the bat on the ground. "Oh my, you have gotten your self in a mess haven't you? Don't worry, we'll have you out of here and cleaned up in no time."

"You want any help with the body?"

"No, I'll do fine, Jethro. I'd prefer to do it my self anyway, try and keep the old ticker going," he joked before Jenkins came up to them.

"We've haven't gotten any ID on the victim yet," he informed. "But they may have a witness. They found a kid next to the body, but I doubt that they'll be able to tell us much."

Gibbs looked over toward where he was pointing. Sat in the open trunk of a car was a small boy who looked around 6, maybe 7 years old. His clothes had dirt and small rips in them, like he had been crawling on the ground a while. His face was tear stained, though he was wiping his cheeks with the corner of a blanket that was wrapped around him. Despite his eyes being slightly red and puff, obviously from crying, they were a large and brown. His hair was a sandy brown, with fairly long bangs that fell on his face. All in all, he looked like a normal, somewhat cute kid.

"Okay, Jenkins, photos, tag and bag, Ducky, come see me when your done," he told them before walking of.

"What about you?" asked Ducky.

"I got the kid."

The kid looked very surprised when a Gibbs sat down besides him in the cars trunk. He quickly sat up straight and looked down at the floor, very nervous.

"Coffee?" he asked, holding a drink out to him. He had managed to find a small coffee shop just down the rode. The boy seemed very surprised by the question. He opened and closed him mouth a few times, but no words came out of his mouth. He swallowed and tried once more.

"I-I'm… not allowed coffee…" he stuttered, his cheeks going red.

"Yeah, my mom said the same thing when I was young," he said, taking the coffee back. "I'm Agent Gibbs, I work at NCIS. It means 'Naval Criminal Investigative Service'. What's your name?"

"Timothy. Timothy McGee… Sir," he added quickly, deciding not to mention the fact that he knew what NCIS meant.

"You don't have you sir me," he told the boy.

"Yes…" he thought hard for a few seconds. "…Boss?"

Gibbs couldn't help but smirked. "I can live with that. Can I ask you a few questions, Tim?"

"Erm… yes, of course, s… boss," he answered uncertainly.

"Could you tell me what happened?" he asked softly. He knew that it was a traumatising thing to go through, whether your 6 or 60. Gibbs noticed that Tim stiffened at the question.

"I… I don't under stand the question…"

"Could you tell me how you ended up… next to the body?"

Tim stayed silent for a few seconds, tacking a deep breath and clutching tighter onto the blanket wrapped around him. "I was walking home from school with some friends. We were talking and playing and stuff for ages and I didn't realise how late it was so I went through the park to get home. I tripped over and hit my head on the side and blacked out. I woke up when the police came," he explained, rubbing his right cheek. Now that Gibbs looked at it, it did look a little bruised and swollen. But something was telling him that Tim wasn't telling him the whole story, whether it was the smears blood on his hand, the fact that it took him a while to answer or Gibbs' gut.

"That the whole story?" asked Gibbs. Tim nodded slowly and began to shiver a lot. Gibbs did admit that it was a bit cold, but he was surprised to see him shack so much. Then it hit him. He looked down, and through a small gap in the blanket, he saw that the young boy had wet himself. He couldn't blame the kid, waking up surrounded by police and strangers and a dead body. He pulled of his jacket and draped it over Tim's front, making it stay up by his shoulders.

"Better?" Tim blushed bright red, realising that the man noticed. Thankfully the subject was changed when Ducky came up to him.

"We're all done here, Jethro. Jenkins found a pile a vomit near the body. He's collecting it now, much to his disgust. We should be able to get some DNA from it," said the ME. "So, what did you need me for?"

"Duck, this is Timothy McGee. Tim, this is our medical examiner, Dr. Mallard," Gibbs said. Time shyly offered his hand to the older man who shook it fondly.

"Hello there, Timothy. You can call me Ducky if you like, everybody dose."

"You think you could have a look at his cheek there, Duck?" asked Gibbs. Ducky bent down to Tim's eye level to get a better look. He asked him to open his mouth so he could see if any teat were broken. After having a look with his latex gloze covered fingers, he discovered that they were all, thankfully, intact.

"So… what do you do at NCIS, Dr. Mallard?" asked Tim, as Ducky gave him a small bag of ice for him to put on his cheek.

"I examine corpses of the victims in our cases," he explained, and smiled at the somewhat horrified look on the young boys face. Whilst Ducky started to scrap under Tim's fingernails, just as a normal procedure, Gibbs continued to talk to him.

"Isn't it a little dangerous for a little kid like you to be walking around on his own?"

"I'm can look after myself, I'm 8 years old," he protested. Gibbs was a little surprised to hear that, he old looked about 6, but decided not to push on it.

"What about you parents? Don't they look after you as well?"

"Of course they do, but… they work long shifts, so I look after me and my little sister when there not there."

"What do they do?"

"My mom works as a waitress and my step-dad works for the Navy, so he's away a lot like he is now," he explained simply. His real dad had left when Tim was about 3, and his mom re-married later that year and had his sister, Sarah, nine months later. When his mom asked if he remembered his real father, he said that he didn't, but he was lying. He still had nightmares about him.

"There we go, all done," Ducky said happily, standing up and placing the evidence collected in a small jar into a plastic bag. "Alright Timothy, you're all done."

"Dose that mean I can go hope now!" he asked, smiling. He had wanted to go home ever since this all started.

"Yeah, sure. I'll give you a lift," said Gibbs before turning to Ducky. "You think you can handle every thing till I get back?"

"Of course Jethro, you go get this young man home."

Tim politely thanked Ducky for the ice pack and said goodbye, before quickly following Gibbs past the police tap and into the man's car. He gave him the address and Gibbs started driving. Tim started to neatly fold the man's jacket, mostly to distract himself from the man's driving or else he was sure that he would throw up again. He wasn't sure why he liked this man so much. E was akward around new people even at the best of times, but with him it was different. Thankfully, they pulled up near his house in a just few minutes.

"Thank you for taking me home, Agent Gibbs," said Tim, handing him back his jacket and quickly moving the blanket that was still with him in front of the wet patch on his clothes.

"I just need to talk to you mom for a few minutes, tell her what happened. Okay?"

Tim gulped and nodded quickly. He was really nervous about seeing his mother after all of this. He remembered that she always panicked if he was just 5 minutes late home, so she was probably frantic by now. Walking down the small path to the front door, Gibbs noticed that all the light in the house were on, and he could hear muffled shout, and the noise of running feet. He could see the shadows of two people on the closed curtains. Suddenly the front door was flung open and stood there was a small girl, around the same size as Tim, with the same large brown eyes. Her hair was a darker brown that was tied up in pigtails, though they were starting to fall out. She was dressed in a pink dressing gown and white slippers. Her face had tears stains down her cheeks, like she had been crying. She made a mad dash toward Tim and flung her arms around his neck, knocking them both to the ground in the process.

"I missed you," she mumbled into his neck, sniffing hard as if trying not to cry. Tim retuned the hug, grapping tight hold of his little sister. He wasn't really sure why. Usually they were always fighting and annoying each other, but for some reason, he felt like if he let go if her, his whole world would be shattered into a million pieces. He began to feel tears prickling up in his eye.

Suddenly there was someone else at the door. This time it was a woman with short blond hair just past her shoulders and brown eyes. She had jeans and a white fluffy, jumper and shoes on, like she was ready to run out of the house if she needed to. In her hand was a telephone, with a faint voice still talking to her on the other end. "It's alright, he's here!" she called down the phone before putting it down on the table in the hall and running out towards her son. She pulled him into a tight hug, along with Sarah who refused to let go of him. Then she pushed him out at arms length, a firm grip on his shoulders.

"Where the hell have you been!? Its 10 o'clock at night, you should have been back hours ago! You idiot, why didn't you come home, I've been calling the police trying to get them to find you, but they were all busy with a dead body! Do you know how much that made me worry, do you understand that I thought that you could have been really hurt, or worse?" she yelled at him. At first, Tim thought that she was furious with him, but then he saw something that made him understand. Tears were running fast down her face and showed no sign of stopping. She was crying. She wasn't angry. She was worried and scared, for him. As he began to see her shake, he looked down at the ground. He knew that if he looked up at his mother, he would start crying like a baby.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," he said, as she started to hug them again. That's all he could say, that he was sorry. He said it over and over again, until she stopped crying and Sarah had loosened her grip on his neck.

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"Thank you very much for bringing him home, Agent Gibbs," said Victoria McGee as she handed him a mug of coffee. She had invited him in and sent the kids upstairs to go to bed. Gibbs had just finished explaining everything that had happened that night. "I can't believe that this is happening. You hear about these things, but you never think that there going to happen to you."

"I know that this is a hard time for you Mrs. McGee, but I still need Tim to come to the station in the morning so we can get in official statement."

"Oh, yes, of courses. I'll take him before I go to work tomorrow. I can't believe that there's a murder around here somewhere. It sounds so unreal, like a dream or something…" she carried on mumbling things mostly to herself, as Gibbs drank the coffee.

"Do you think that I could see Tim for a few seconds?" he asked when he was done.

"Oh, yes of course, go on up," she said, though Gibbs was already heading for the staircase.

"Where were you?" demander Sarah, as she and Tim got into their beds. Tim had just had a very quick shower and was now in his blue dinosaur pyjamas.

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it!" he snapped, making Sarah pout. Then her face went sad and serious.

"Mommy went really scary… she was running around and yelling… she even yelled at me…" she mumbled, her lower lip trembling slightly.

"She was just worried, she's not mad at you, she didn't mean it," Tim said quickly, not wanting her to cry again.

"She won't go scary like your daddy, will she?" she asked, barely above a whisper. Sarah had only met Tim's dad once, a few years ago, but she knew enough about him from that one experience.

"Of course she won't! Mom wouldn't ever go scary like him, you know that," he said comfortingly.

"Good," she smiled happily, before giving a long yawn. "Night Tim"

"Night Sarah," he said, about to turn of the light until their bedroom door opened and Gibbs stepped inside.

"Agent Gibbs?" Tim couldn't help but wonder why he was still here, and in their bedroom no less.

"Hey there. I just wanted to give you this," said Gibbs, pulling out a small piece of paper from his pocket and giving it to Tim. On t was a phone number.

"What's this for?"

"Just in case you want to talk."

"About the case?"

"If you want. You need anything; you just give me a call. Okay, I got to go. I'll see you tomorrow when we write out your statement," he said before walking out of the bedroom.

"He looks kinda scary," commented Sarah, as she snuggled further into her bed.

Tim's stomach tightened slightly. He was feeling really guilty. He had lied to Gibbs before about what happened. He wasn't sure why he lied, he just did. He thought that if he said he didn't see anything then this whole thing would just blow away, so why was he feeling so guilt towards a man that he barely knew? He sighed and clambered into his own bed. Hopefully, things would be better in the morning.

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_**A/N**: Good? bad? Anything you want in the story? Review Please!_


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